Carlos Cámara

Carlos Cámara-Menoyo

Senior Research Software Engineer

@ccamara.scholar.social

@ccamara.scholar.social.ap.brid.gy

Timothy Monteath

Timothy Monteath

Assistant Professor

Timothy.monteath@warwick.ac.uk

@twm.mastodon.sdf.org

Are maps objective?

Map-making

How are maps made?

1. Geodesy

Is what figuring out where things are and how to record them. Focus is on mathematical foundations (coordinates, Earth’s shape).

This was once a huge scientific enterprise, today this is done by satellite and most of us, even very specialist geographers don’t have to think about it very much.

Keywords: precision, geolocation, GPS, LIDAR, coordinates system…

2. Cartogrpahy

Is how we visualize information about things in the world on maps .

The history of cartography is long and detailed, and the question of what was mapped by whom has dramatically shaped the modern world.

Keywords: projections, shapes, size, colour…

Who makes maps?

Governments

Motivation: public service

Official maps

  • Ordnance Survey
  • NASA

Companies

Motivation: Business model.

  • Google, Microsoft, Apple…
  • ESRI, Carto
  • …

Specific, detailed maps, related to their business model.

Individuals!

Motivation: diverse Coverage and precision: diverse

  • OpenStreetMap

Are maps objective?

Each map involves a series of decisions that are anything but objective

Projections

No projection is perfect! Projection is an ‘unsolvable problem’ in that however we do it we are going to end up with some distortion somewhere on our map.

What is included (and what is not!)

OSM Carto: a General Purpose style

OSM Public transport layer

OSM Public transport layer

Or take the example of a crime map. Usually expressed in maps like this. Without any context, as it crime simply happens in some places. How would the story change if displayed public investment, too …or worse, ethnicity?

Orientation and alignment

So what?

Maps and power

All maps are political and anything but neutral:

  • They follow a political agenda
  • Prone to (unconcious) bias

Either way, they influence/impact other people’s lifes, especially in less privileged/underrepresented population:

  • Origin/Geography
  • Gender
  • Sexual orientation…

There’s a long history of maps and power

British Empire in 1886. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Motivation

Use data visualisations to understand whether these decisions had a positive or negative impact in under-represented communities.

Inspiration: Data Feminism

OpenStreetMap (OSM)

OSM is the largest and most exhaustive collaborative map of the world.

Dubbed as the wikipedia of the maps.

Editing OSM Data

OSM is huge!

10,158,116 OSM users1

A graph of OpenStreetMap contributors

A graph of OpenStreetMap features

OSM is everywhere!

Major Sites: Amazon, Apple, Baidu Maps, Facebook, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Wikimedia

Transport: Air France, Alaska Airlines, Deutsche Bahn, Grab, SNCF (French rail agency), Uber Geodata Software and Services: CARTO, Digital Globe, ESRI, Garmin, Mapbox, Telenav

Government: Agence Française de Développement , Government of Brazil, Government of Italy: President’s Office, Police Scotland, US National Park Service, US State Department, USAID, Peace Corps….

What?

  • Is OSM as neutral as it claims to be?
  • How is the notion of neutrality being implemented?
  • How is ‘neutrality’ affecting other, underrepresented demographics?

How?

Participatory research: teaming with GeoChicas and workshops

GeoChicas is a collective of feminist women linked to OpenStreetMap, originally Spanish-speaking, who work for women’s empowerment and the reduction of the gender gap in OpenStreetMap communities and in communities associated with the world of free software and open data.

Some results

User demographics

10,158,116 OSM users1

User Census

Co-design visualisation

Workshop on alternative cartography

WEB Dubois map of Philadelphia

You are invited!

link: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/research/digital-good-neutrality-osm/inclusive-cartographies-workshop/

Kelly 2020

Some findings

  • Bias in OSM’s contributors -> It is expected that it may influence how they contribute to the map -> and how the map looks like.

  • Awareness in OSM, but not much has done.

  • Difficult tension:

    • OSM universalists aspiration collides with considerations